Above: Artist impression (©H.Porter): Please click image to enlarge
MY 1958 UFO ENCOUNTER
by Hilary Porter
The year of the following event was 1958, as far as I can recall: Unfortunately, I am not absolutely sure of the precise day or month, although it would seem that it was during the summer holidays, as, after this experience, Janet and I were too frightened to go out of our homes for quite some time, so it must have been during one of the school breaks.
We were just standing at the bottom of our road chatting to each other: It was I think, near the middle of the day, (as I remember the sun was high), and we were close to the house of a family we knew as the 'Hammond's'.
Suddenly, something took my eye, an object glinting high in the bright sunlight; it was a disc-shaped craft, which I could see in the distance, hanging over trees up on Hawley Park.
I shouted at Janet to look over towards that area: She too remarked that she could see the disc, and, as we looked harder, we both observed a doorway appear in the side of the UFO, complete with a figure standing inside.
In the blink- of-an-eye, the craft zoomed forward till' it was hanging low in the sky; it was then hovering over near to an old factory called the 'Drum Laundry', which was quite close to where we stood.
By now we could see that the saucer-craft was quite sizeable. Although frightened, we dared to continue watching the UFO and clearly saw a humanoid form standing there, (of fairly high stature), looking at us from the open doorway on the side of this craft. Then the object flew away.
I can't say for sure how much time passed during our observation, (or whether we were abducted during the experience, but that remains a possibility, because over the years we have known each other, both Janet and I have experienced many very odd events for which we have no explanation), but the main upshot of it all was, that we were so terrified, we ran as fast as we could from the scene, back up our road and into our homes, and we didn't play together again for quite a while as we were too scared to even go outside!
FLASHBACK
It was 1962, a few years after my real-life UFO encounter, when I attended film night at the Fernhill 61 Club, which was organised by our school youth group; the title screened was 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' starring Michael Renee, a popular film, made eleven years hence.
I had no idea what the movie was about and watched with interest, that was, until I saw the part where a huge saucer lands in the town park and suddenly a door slides open and 'Klaatu', the humanoid/alien protagonist, just stands there.
This was like deja vu, and that sequence terrified me to such a degree that I started crying: I wasn't with Janet that night, but another friend who saw my tears, came over to comfort me; yet nothing could calm me down.
It was no good, I had to go home; running out of the hall and all the way home; I arrived totally exhausted, much to my parents surprise, but said nothing as I knew they wouldn't understand; so I simply went up to my bedroom to hide away.
I don't think for one minute Janet or I ever really forgot the full details of our mind-blowing UFO sighting, but the brain/mind has its own way of coping with such things and would prefer to simply file certain parts of the memory away, only for the 'filing' system to open again thanks to specific 'triggers', corresponding images, sounds or even odours, to reveal disjointed memories.
Also, the Aliens themselves have ways of giving their chosen ones a form of amnesia, but even with this, the mind is very powerful and will record all of our experiences.
Hilary Porter
